Othello ELA 30-1
Background: - Source: tale of passion and murderous jealousy Venetian novella “A Moorish Captain” by Giovanbatista Giraldi Cinthio (1566)
- Shakespeare would have referenced The History & Description of Africa translated into English around 1600 –biases, considered reliable reference
- Written ~ 1603 (first performe 1604/5) Published 1622
Themes etc: - Bradley: [Othello] stirs… in most readers a passion of mingled love and pity which they feel for no other hero in Shakespeare
- Shakespeare makes us care about characters through complexities & subtleties
- Author Jean-Paul Sartre: Shakespeare himself…does not describe from the outside; his characters are intimately bound up with the audience. That is why his plays are the greatest example there is of people’s theatre; in this theatre the public found and still finds its own problems and re-experiences them (1959)
- Understand their weakness & their strengths, their passions & their nobility
- In our engagement in their lives and our pondering over what has gone wrong and why, we are given the opportunity to analyze human life.
- This text provides much to ponder: nature of honor, evolution of jealousy, what a powerful and dangerous tool language can be, the fragility of love, destructive demons of doubt and suspicion
Introduction: - Othello is a General in the Venitian army – has recently promoted a young soldier, Cassio, to lieutenant over the older, more experienced Iago (Char.chart)
- Dramaturges – purpose for background info
** Keep an eye for: plant/seed motif, animal/monster imagery, jealousy, faith/trust/honesty. Have a page in your journal for each of these items** ACT I Scene i Look at language that characters use – how is Shakespeare communicating info about characters through their speech?
1.3 Why is Roderigo upset with Iago?
4.6 How does Iago reference the elopement? What does this tell us?
7.35 What reasons does Iago give for his ill-will toward Othello? How does Roderigo react?
** Key passage I.i.8-33** We get info on the relationships b/w characters
43.59 What is Iago’s plan? What kind of servant does Iago describe himself as?
**Key passage I.i.41-65** We get insight into Iago’s character
69.146 What is the purpose of Iago’s choice of language when speaking with Brabantio? What is significant about Iago’s placement on stage? How has Shakespeare characterized Iago? How does Brabantio react to seeing Roderigo?
147.160 Iago dismisses himself? Why? (reason to Roderigo real?) How is the audience being effected by intro’d to people to hate Othello first?
Journal 1: (personal) Describe a time you did not receive something you wanted and had to perservere in pursuit of it.
Scene ii Make note of Othello’s use of language in this and the next scene – how is he different than the way that the others have characterized him?
1.12 Of whom is Iago speaking? What is revealed about his character?
13.30 What concern does Iago raise about Brabantio? How does Othello’s reaction help to characterize him?
38 **Iago swears by Janus**
80.100 How does Brabantio say that Othello won over Desdemona? Why is Brabantio so upset that he didn’t know of his daughter’s marriage? **Elizabethan Rules of Marriage** Scene iii Make note of Othello’s use of language in this scene. Keep track of the things that may leave a chink in Othello’s armour of confidence (Brabantio, new locale…). Write a list of animal imagery Iago uses and in what context.
1.55 What is happening?
91.110 149.196 Othello’s address to audience and description of events. How is Brabantio convinced? What is Roderigo’s reaction?
254.261 Affairs of state
294 What is going to happen to Desdemona? Why?
321 What is the plan?
331 What does the Duke mean by this? What is it meant to convey?
333.334 Brabantio makes a comment to Othello – what is he saying? What is Shakespeare doing with this line?
345.425 Roderigo and Iago are left alone – what do they discuss?
347.351 What is Roderigo threatening to do and why?
353 How old is Iago? What can you infer about other characters’ ages based on their relationships etc.
361.375 What are Iago’s opinions on fate and love?
379.382 Put money in thy purse (you can count on it) – literal parallel, reflection on Iago’s character
385.404 What reasons does Iago give for thinking the love between Othello and Desdemona cannot last?
411 Cuckold (bird female habit of changing mates; horned – something thrust somewhere by use of a tool); watch for this word and references to it (horned man) throughout play
411.415 To what is Iago refering to as ‘sport?’ What does this tell us about him?
426.447 **Iago’s 1st soliloquay** ACT II Scene i Make note of Othello’s use of language and how he speaks to/of Desdemona. These opening Acts display for us the tragic hero in greatness. Iago develops his plan – what are his reasons for despising Othello? Which characters is he lying to? Keep track of Iago’s use of language.
1.47 What has happened? What are the implications for the characters en route to Cyprus?
48.51 What sort of person in Cassio?
111.114 How does this exchange between Cassio & Iago help to characterize both of them?
116.181 Iago and Desdemona debate about relationships – in what ways is Desdemona unlike the women of her time? What does Iago’s speeches tell us about him?
182.192 **Iago’s 2nd soliloquay** How does he plan to manipulate the situation?
197.215 How does this exchange between Othello and Desdemona help to establish the nature of their relationship?
218.220 Keep track of what Iago reveals to us through his asides – how is he using language to manipulate?
234.307 Iago and Roderigo are alone again. How does he convince Roderido that Desdemona is in love with Cassio? What do they plan? What evidence is there that Iago is not revealing the full extent of his plan to Roderigo?
** Key passage II.i.259-282 ** Knave – practice of fraud/trickery
308.334 **Iago’s 3rd soliloquay**
Scene ii What could be the purpose of this scene? Why would Shakespeare purposefully leave out a party scene? How much time has passed since Othello and Desdemona were married? Keep track of time and how much of it passes throughout the play – think about how this would effect the characters. Scene iii How often is Iago referred to as honest? How would this dramatic irony effect Shakespeare’s audience? How does it help to develop Othello as a tragic hero? Shakespeare has established a cruel irony around who Othello chooses to trust.
7.10 Othello is wrong about Iago and right about Desdemona. This will change.
16-30 What is the difference between how Iago and Cassio talk about Desdemona? What is the purpose of Iago speaking so crudely of her?
31.35 What does Iago prepose? What is Cassio’s response?
49.66 **Iago’s 4th soliloquay** What is his plan for Cassio?
72.105 Here, Shakespeare takes some time to establish a mood of revelry. How does this author choice align itself with Iago’s intentions? How might these lines effect Shakespeare’s audience?
125.136 What does Iago tell Montano?
153.180 Iago’s plan goes into action – what is the result? Do you believe that everything is going according to Iago’s plan?
181.199 How does Othello act when he comes to break it up? How does Iago mirror or play toward Othello?
235.261 Iago isn’t really lying at all. He tells it as it happened, but still is established clearly as a liar and untrustworthy to the audience. How has Shakespeare managed to create a character who is seen as a liar when he tells the truth?
265 What is Cassio’s punishment?
281.302 Why is Cassio upset? How does Cassio’s concern contrast those of Iago? Reputation, or the way we are seen by others is an important theme in this play, how does each character relate to this idea? What means has Shakespeare used to establish this theme?
332.346 What does Iago advise Cassio to do?
356.382 **Iago’s 5th soliloquay**
384.403 What does Roderigo want to do? What is Iago’s reaction? What is Roderigo’s role in Iago’s plan? What is his role in the play?
405.410 Iago has some lines alone – what is his resolve? ACT III Scene i Cassio is following a Rennaissance custom of hiring musicians to awaken newlyweds after their wedding night.
35.38 What has Cassio done? What is he hoping to achieve?
46.56 What news does Emilia bring? Here, we learn that Othello is willing to listen to reason and trust who he has known to be good and true. That will change.
Scene ii What is the purpose of these short scenes? What is Shakespeare doing with them?
Scene iii This is a key scene. At the beginning of this scene, Othello is wholly in love with Desdemona, by the end of it he is ready to murder her. How does Iago plant the seed of doubt in Othello’s mind and how does he make it grow? How has the work Shakespeare done up to this point make it possible for such an abrupt about-face?
1.30 What does Cassio ask of Desdemona? What is her response? How does her vehemence play into Iago’s plans?
37.46 Iago plants the seed – very effective strategy
100.102 What is Othello saying in these lines? What is Shakespeare’s purpose with them? Wretch – alien, forlorn Perdition – ruin
105.298 Iago develops Othello’s doubt; how? What rhetorical devices does he use here and throughout the play to play on Othello’s insecurities?
299.317 **Othello’s 1st soliloquay** What doubts plague Othello? What is his tragic flaw?
331 Shakespeare uses very few stage directions, and almost none that involve props. Why this? What is the hankerchief’s significance?
333.377 Keep track of the hankerchief’s wanderings. Why is the hankerchief important to Othello? What is its history? What does it come to represent in the play? Watch for it throughout the play.
369.377 **Iago’s 6th soliloquay** What is his plan for the hankerchief? What does it represent to Iago? In what ways has Iago’s possession of it changed its significance?
385.387 Describe the state Othello is in. Othello is telling Iago something he already knows – in what ways has Iago already used this knowledge?
411.415 What does Othello ask for? How is Shakespeare setting up a tragically ironic interpretation of “seeing is believing?”
438.447 Othello laments how at odds he is. In what ways is his character set up to develop this idea of contrast? How does Iago’s reaction further underlie this idea? 450.483 Iago is the one who planted doubt in Othello’s mind, why is he now telling Othello that he shouldn’t persue the issue? What is its result on Othello? How is Shakespeare using rhetoric and language?
491.492 Shakespeare has Iago using a combination of lies, truth, half-truth and omissions – what idea does this develop about the nature of language?
500.501 How does Iago’s choice of words help pave the way for Othello’s conclusions?
502.510 In what ways has Othello’s use of language changed from Act I? Go back to his speech about Desdemona, look at the difference in usage, structure, content. In what ways would these changes in Othello play into an Elizabethan audience’s expectations for him?
521 Othello kneels at Iago’s feet. What is the significance of this? What is the purpose of Iago’s reaction? How is Shakespeare using stage direction here to establish a change?
545.546 Hasn’t Iago now received exactly what he wanted? What is ominious about Iago’s reply? What exactly is Shakespeare implying that Othello has aligned himself with? Scene iv After such a dark, ominious scene, we are presented with the ladies and a clown. How would this juxtaposition effect the audience – what role does dramatic irony play in tragedy?
37 Make note of Othello’s asides – what is Shakespeare’s purpose in including them?
41.63 In what ways is Othello twisting Desdemona’s words? Keep track of how Shakespeare questions the reality of truth in language.
92 Desdemona’s reaction clearly establishes that there has been a distinct and abrupt change in Othello’s behavior.
116.117 What do you see as the root cause of jealousy? What is a jealous person seeking? How has doubt changed Othello? Why has it managed to work so well?
120.123 Emilia has a bleak outlook on men, but she’s not wrong of the men in this play. In what ways is Emilia’s statement proven true? Make note of how Emilia is both used and refuses to be used by her husband throughout the play.
161.175 Although Desdemona doesn’t know what’s going on, her insights into her husband are fairly accurate and help paint a clear picture for the audience of her impressions of Othello. Identify the different ways in which Shakespeare has developed the idea about how people’s impressions of us effect their interactions with us.
180.185 Here again is mention of a monster – what connotations does this word have. To what is Emilia refering to as a monster? In what ways does such a metaphor suit the subject?
189 Bianca is a prostitute and sometimes-lover of Cassio. What is her role in the play?